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David Chang's muku finds itself in the
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middle of some chili crunch drama muku
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has trademarked chili crunch a spicy
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oily crispy condiment popular in Asian
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countries after sending cease and assist
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letters to manufacturers using the name
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the brand has been accused of
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trademarking a generic cultural product
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some critics have compared it the move
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to trademarking ketchup and suggested
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its mon his Monopoly Behavior a company
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in Denver previously owned the trademark
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and sent a CE to his letter to Mama fuku
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which instead has instead worked to
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purchase the trademark for itself I I
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Scott you're a branding person what the
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heck chili crunch I've seen chili crunch
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stuff all over the place in Asia and
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also anytime you go to an Asian market
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there's a million chili crunch things
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this seems crazy for for for M fuku and
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David Chang to do he looks like an
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we your thoughts on like this
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marketing thing well it's like the
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majority of bad ideas started out as
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good ideas and that is our ability to
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protect IP is really important whether
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it's someone's likeness whether it's the
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the patents or the you know Chemical
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Context of a pharmaceutical America's
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Innovation and our economy relies on
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what you would Loosely called
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intellectual property protection and our
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ability to legally protect it this has
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it gone crazy this reminds me of when
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Paris Hilton tried to trademark that's
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hot oh right yeah yeahhuh I knew you'd
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be good at this go ahead and someone
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said that no you can't trademark this so
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the reason why we have thoughtful judges
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in law and and and cases is that we can
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say all right there is a line here
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because what you have is it's been
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weaponized in the sense that these
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especially big companies or well
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resourced companies send cease deis
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letters to everyone for anything that
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smells of anything remote and they use
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it as a means of suppressing competition
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and also they use it as a means of
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trying to get unearned PR for example
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Amazon will file a patent for a not only
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a floating Warehouse which is probably
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um physically uh impossible for the the
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next couple centuries they will file a
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patent for a projectile defense Shield
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of their floating warehouse and the
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reason they do it is they know that
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reporters at Forbes and other Business
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magazines troll patent filings and then
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write about them so IP protection has
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taken on all this different Nuance
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including intimidation including
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well-resourced monopolies they Conant
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because if you get a cease and toist
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letter and you're a small company you're
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sort of inclined to say am I really
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going to take on this well-resourced
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company or am I just going to find
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another name but this is an example of a
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gone Haywire these are generic terms and
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I believe the court will say sorry this
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term has become generic you can't own it
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I think this is exactly why to talk
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about this even though people are sort
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of losing their minds on um on the
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internet here it's really important what
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he's done here like and I agree with you
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I agree with you this is a where do you
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think it's going to end up it'll be
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dismissed dismissed meaning he won't be
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able to to to cease into system no yeah
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it'll be this will be as you call it
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legal harassment they'll say you have no
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domain over this name and yeah and you
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should pay back the legal fees for the
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people where you're creating you know
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what whatever you call it a superflous
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or whatever the term but it's an issue
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around the trademark office too because
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I think he he does own the trademark
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right he owns it well but but if it's
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tradem markable they'll they that's
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right I can't believe he got the
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trademark at all right so I I just don't
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I I don't
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know you know I look this is a this is
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for IP lawyers but your ability to Inc
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to encourage people to make the
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requisite investment in developing
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important differentiated intellectual
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property is really important to provide
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that protection at the same time you
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have to ensure that there's a
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competitive marketplace where people who
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are trying to develop their own IP don't
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bump into IP that's been inflated Beyond
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reasonable protection
